Dr. Iyad Allawi (اياد علاوي)
(born
1945) is the
interim
Prime Minister of Iraq.
A prominent
Iraqi-British
neurologist and Iraqi exile
political activist, the
Shia
Muslim became a member of the
Iraq Interim Governing Council, which was created following
the
2003 invasion of Iraq. He became Iraq's first
head of government since
Saddam Hussein when the council dissolved on
June 1,
2004
and named him Prime Minister. A former
Ba'athist, Mr Allawi set up and leads the
CIA-supported
Iraqi National Accord which carried out bombings in Saddam
Hussein's Iraq. In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the INA
provided intelligence about alleged weapons of mass destruction
to
MI6.
Allawi has lived about half of his life in the
UK and
retains British citizenship.
Allawi's Early Life
Allawi was born in 1945 to a prominent Iraqi Shia family; his
grandfather helped to negotiate Iraq's independence from
Britain, and his father was an MP.
In the 1960s, he studied at medical school in
Baghdad, where he first met
Saddam Hussein.
Early Political Career
According to the
memoirs of
Talib Shabib, Iyad Allawi began his political life around
1963,
as an
assassin. Allawi was an active supporter of the Iraqi Ba'ath
Party in its early days. In
1971
he moved to London in order to continue his medical education.
Some have reported this as an exile, but some of Allawi's old
counterparts have claimed that he continued to serve the Baath
Party, and the Iraqi secret police, searching out enemies of the
regime. However, he fell out of favor from the Baath party for
undisclosed reasons in 1975[1]
(http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040628fa_fact).
While Allawi was living in
Surrey in 1978, he was awoken in bed one night by an
intruder who proceeded to attack the former Baathist assassin
with an axe. The intruder left, convinced that Allawi was dead.
He survived the attempted murder, and spent the next year in
hospital recovering from his injuries. It is presumed that the
attack was an assassination ordered by
Iraq's
then deputy president,
Saddam Hussein.
The Iraqi National Accord
In
1993, Allawi organized the
Iraqi National Accord (INA), a group consisting mainly of
former military personnel who had defected from
Saddam Hussein's Iraq to instigate a military coup. Allawi
was recruited by the
CIA
in 1992 as a counterpoint to the more well-known CIA asset
Ahmad Chalabi, and because of the INA's links in the
Ba'athist establishment. According to former CIA officers,
Allawi's INA organised terrorist attacks in Iraq between 1992
and 1995, probably including the bombing of a school bus that
killed school children.
[2] (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/09/politics/09ALLA.html?ex=1087747955&ei=1&en=c040fed2685e7eb8).
Beginning in 2003, Allawi paid prominent Washington lobbyists
and New York publicity agents more than $300,000 to give him
access to Washington policy-makers and journalists. The funds
passed through his ally in the UK, Mashal Nawab. Operating with
the CIA, the INA unsuccessfully attempted to provoke a military
coup
in Iraq in
1996.
Allawi channelled the report from an Iraqi officer claiming
that Iraq could deploy its supposed
weapons of mass destruction within "45 minutes" to
British Intelligence.
[3] (http://politics.guardian.co.uk/kelly/story/0,13747,1131993,00.html)
This claim featured prominently in the
September Dossier which the British government released
in 2002 to gain public support for the
Iraq invasion. In the aftermath of the war, the "45 minute
claim" was also at the heart of the confrontation between the
British government and the
BBC,
and the death of
David Kelly later examined by
Lord Hutton. Giving evidence to the
Hutton Inquiry, the head of MI6
Richard Dearlove suggested that the claim related to
battlefield weapons rather than weapons of mass destruction.[4] Allawi spokesman admitted in January 2004 that the claim was
a "crock of shit."[5]
Contemporary Political Career
Allawi was appointed to the Iraqi Governing Council following
his return from exile after the fall of Saddam in
2003.
He held the rotating
presidency of the interim governing council during October
of 2003.
On
May
28,
2004, he was chosen by the council to be the Interim
Prime Minister of Iraq to govern the country beginning with
the United States' handover of sovereignty (June
30,
2004) until national elections, scheduled for early
2005.
Although many believe the decision was reached largely on the
advice of
United Nations special envoy to Iraq,
Lakhdar Brahimi, the
New York Times reported that Brahimi only endorsed him
reluctantly after pressure from US officials. In response to a
question about the role of the US in Allawi's appointment,
Brahimi replied: “I sometimes say, I'm sure he doesn't mind me
saying that,
Bremer is the dictator of Iraq. He has the money. He has the
signature. Nothing happens without his agreement in this
country.”
[6]
Two weeks later, Brahimi announced his resignation, due to "from
great difficulties and frustration".
[7]
In the US, Allawi is often described as a moderate Shia, a
member of Iraq's majority faith, chosen for his moderate
religious and political views.
External Links
